Who Dares, Who Errs? Disentangling Cognitive and Motivational Roots of Age Differences in Decisions Under Risk
首次分离认知与动机因素在风险决策年龄差异中的作用，发现老年人在损失领域决策质量较低源于认知能力下降，而在收益和混合领域更爱冒险则与负面情绪减弱有关。
We separate for the first time the roles of cognitive and motivational factors in shaping age differences in decision making under risk. Younger and older adults completed gain, loss, and mixed-domain choice problems as well as measures of cognitive functioning and affect. The older adults' decision quality was lower than the younger adults' in the loss domain, and this age difference was attributable to the older adults' lower cognitive abilities. In addition, the older adults chose the more risky option more often than the younger adults in the gain and mixed domains; this difference in risk aversion was attributable to less pronounced negative affect among the older adults. Computational modeling with a hierarchical Bayesian implementation of cumulative prospect theory revealed that the older adults had higher response noise and more optimistic decision weights for gains than did the younger adults. Moreover, the older adults showed no loss aversion, a finding that supports a positivity-focus (rather than a loss-prevention) view of motivational reorientation in older age.